RAILROADS IN POLITICS.
The question might be asked how the railroad companies for many years in
succession have been able to prevent State control and pursue a policy
so detrimental to the best interests of the public. One might think that
in a republic where the people are the source of all power, and where
all officers are directly or indirectly selected by the people to carry
out their wishes and to administer the government in their interest, a
coterie of men bent on pecuniary gain would not be permitted to subvert
those principles of the common law and public economy which from time
immemorial have been the recognized anchors of the liberty of the
Anglo-Saxon race.
The statement that under a free government it is possible for a few to
suppress the many might almost sound absurd to a monarchist, and yet is
it true that for the past twenty-five years the public affairs of this
country have been unduly controlled by a few hundred railroad managers.
To perpetuate without molestation their unjust practices and prevent any
approach to an assertion of the principle of State control of railroad
transportation, railroad managers have secured, wherever possible, the
co-operation of public officials, and, in fact, of every semi-public and
private agency capable of affecting public opinion. Their great wealth
and power has made it possible for them to influence to a greater or
less extent every department of the National and State governments.
Their influence extends from the township assessor's office to the
national capital, from the publisher of the small cross-roads paper to
the editorial staff of the metropolitan daily. It is felt in every
caucus, in every nominating convention and at every election. Typical
railroad men draw no party lines, advocate no principles, and take
little interest in any but their own cause; they are, as Mr. Gould
expressed it, Democrats in Democratic and Republicans in Republican
districts. The large means at the command of railroad companies, their
favors, their vast armies of employes and attorneys and their almost
equally large force of special retainers are freely employed to carry
into execution their political designs, and the standard of ethics
recognized by railroad managers in these exploits is an exceedingly low
one.
It is a settled principle of these men that, if they can prevent it, no
person not known to be friendly to their cause must be placed into any
public office where he might have an opportunity to aid or injure their
interests. The records of the various candidates of the principal
parties for city, county, State and national offices are therefore
carefully canvassed previous to the primaries, the most acceptable among
the candidates of each party are selected as the railroad candidates,
and the local representatives of the railroad interest in each party are
instructed to use all means in their power to secure their nomination.
If none but candidates who are servile to the railroad interest are
nominated by the principal parties, the election is permitted to take
its own course, for, whichever side is successful, the railroad interest
is safe. If, however, there is reason to believe that a nominee is not
as devoted to their interests as the nominee of an opposing party, the
latter is sure to receive at the polls whatever support railroad
influence can give him. That a public official elected by the grace of a
railroad manager is but too apt to become a tool in his hands needs no
proof. Both gratitude and fear tie the average politician to the
powerful forces which can control his political destiny.
The railroad manager, on the other hand, always kindly remembers his
officeholding friends as long as they are loyal and in a position to
serve him. Before the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act there was
every year a wholesale distribution of railroad passes among public
officeholders and other prominent politicians. The pass was the token of
the continued good will of the railroad dignitaries as the withholding
of the "courtesy" was a certain indication of their displeasure. If the
officeholder had personal or political friends whom he desired to have
recognized, an intimation of this desire was generally sufficient to
have the pass privilege even extended to them. And yet these favors were
not bestowed indiscriminately. Thus the pass credit of a county official
was more limited than that of an officer of the State, and the latter
class were again rated according to their influence and rank.
Furthermore, while annual passes were thus freely distributed among one
class of officials, others could obtain them only by making special
application for them. Members of the legislature would not unfrequently
receive their supply of railroad passes before their certificates of
election were issued, but legislative committee clerks and employes in
the various departments of the State government were required to satisfy
the railroad authorities that they were in a position to aid or to
injure the railroad cause before their names were placed on the list of
persons "entitled to the courtesy".
Of course the judiciary, as a coordinate branch of the government, could
not well be slighted. Indeed, previous to the enactment of the
Interstate Commerce Law, a judge would have regarded it an affront if he
had not been furnished with passes by the various companies operating
railroads in his district. It appears that the law has not entirely
corrected this abuse, for only about two years ago the Chicago _News_
made the discovery that nearly every judge in the city of Chicago
traveled on passes. It is strange to what extent the pass often debased
the judiciary. It was not unfrequent for judges to solicit passes for
family and friends, and instances might be named where they demanded
them in a wholesale way.
The impudent demands were usually honored by the railroad authorities,
who reasoned that they could better afford to bear the shameless
effrontery of the ermined extortioner than the damage which might result
to them from adverse decisions.
A railroad pass, when presented by a public official or even by any
public man, is now, in nine cases out of ten, a certificate of dishonor
and a token of servility, and is so recognized by railroad officials.
What equivalent railroad companies expect for the pass "courtesy" is
well illustrated by the experience of an Iowa judge. This gentleman, who
had been on the bench for years and always had been favored with passes
by the various companies operating lines in his district, at the
beginning of a new year failed to receive the customary pass from a
leading road. Meeting its chief attorney, he took occasion to call his
attention to what he supposed to have been an oversight on the part of
the officer charged with the distribution of the passes. The attorney
seemed to take in the situation at once. "Judge," said he, "did you not
recently decide an important case against our company?" "And was my
decision," replied the Judge, "not in accordance with law as well as
with justice?" The attorney did not answer this question, but in the
course of a few days the Judge received the desired pass. A few months
later it again became the Judge's unpleasant duty to render a decision
adverse to the same company. This second act of judicial independence
was not forgiven, and the next time he presented his pass it was
unceremoniously taken up by the conductor in the presence of a large
number of passengers, and he was required to pay his fare.
Employes, while engaged in the legitimate business of their companies,
should, of course, be transported free, but a great many persons receive
passes and are classed as employes who never render any legitimate
service for the company giving the pass, and by far the greater portion
of passes are not granted from pure motives, but are given for the
purpose of corrupting their holders. It arouses antagonism, because as a
rule passes are given to people who are fully able to pay their fare and
are denied to those who are least able to pay it. The passenger who pays
his fare and then finds that a large number of his fellow-passengers
travel on passes realizes that he is compelled to pay a higher fare that
others may be carried free. He feels that he is unjustly discriminated
against, and wonders why such discrimination is tolerated in a country
whose institutions are founded upon the very principle of equal rights
to all. A good anecdote is related which well illustrates this feeling.
A farmer and a lawyer occupied the same seat in a railroad car. When the
conductor came the farmer presented his ticket, and the lawyer a pass.
The farmer's features did not conceal his disgust when he discovered
that his seat-mate was a deadhead. The lawyer, trying to assuage the
indignation of the observing granger, said to him: "My friend, you
travel very cheaply on this road." "I think so myself," replied the
farmer, "considering the fact that I have to pay fare for both of us."
But what must be a passenger's surprise when he finds that the judge who
to-morrow is to preside at the trial of a case in which the railroad
company is a party to-day accepts free transportation at its hands. A
judge may scorn the charge that he is influenced by a railroad pass, but
his fellow-passenger who has paid his fare cannot understand why the
railroad company should give passes to one class of people and refuse
them to others, if it does not consider one more than others to be in a
position to reciprocate its favors.
In their endeavor to win over the courts, however, the railroads do by
no means confine their attention to the judges. They are well aware that
a biased jury is often more useful to them than a biased judge, and
efforts are made by them to contaminate juries, or at least prejudice
them in their favor. A prominent Iowa attorney, the legal and political
factotum of a large railroad corporation, for years made it a practice
to supply jurors with passes. In one instance, when it was shown in
court by the opposing counsel that all jurors in the case on trial had
accepted passes from the railroad company which was the defendant in the
case, the judge found himself compelled to discharge the whole jury. The
argument made by this counsel, in support of his motion that the jury be
discharged, was certainly to the point. He showed that in order to have
an equal chance for justice it would be necessary for his client to give
each juror at least fifty dollars to offset the bribes given to them by
the railroad company.
That it has always been the policy of railroad managers to propitiate
the judiciary is a fact too generally known among public men to admit of
contradiction. If a judge owes his nomination or election to railroad
influences, railroad managers feel that they have in this a guarantee of
loyalty. If, however, he acquires the ermine in spite of railroad
opposition, every effort is made to conciliate the new dispenser of the
laws. The bestowal of unusual favors, flattery, simulated friendship and
a thousand other strategies are brought into requisition to capture the
wayward jurist. If he proves docile, if his decisions improve with time
and show a gradual appreciation of the particular sacredness of
corporate rights, the railroad manager will even forgive him his former
heresy and rally to his support in the future. But if he asserts his
convictions, if he attempts to discharge the duties of his responsible
office without fear or favor, if he can neither be corrupted nor
intimidated, all available railroad forces will be marshaled against him
in the future.
It cannot be surprising that, under such circumstances, there always has
been a tendency among judges to be conservative and to give the
railroads the benefit of the doubt in their decisions. Judges well know
that railroad companies appeal almost invariably when the decision of a
lower court is adverse to them, but private citizens only in exceptional
cases. They also know that railroads never forgive adverse decisions,
whether right or wrong, while private citizens, as a rule, accept the
decision of the court as justice, and do not hold the judge responsible
for its being adverse to them. Our judiciary is, and probably always has
been, as incorruptible as the judiciary of any country in the world; but
our judges are made of no better material than our legislative or
executive officers. Weak men, in all stations, are influenced by wealth
and power, and weak judges can always be found who will be led or forced
from the path of duty so long as corrupt men are permitted to manage
railroads and to remain in possession of a power only inferior to that
of an autocratic ruler.
The influence which railroads exert extends from the lowest to the
highest court of the land. Federal courts have more than once been
successfully appealed to to give legal sanction to the perpetuation of
gigantic frauds, or to frustrate attempts made by the individual States
to place restrictions upon roads operated within their respective
borders. Twenty years ago a Federal judge aided Mr. Gould in his
notorious Erie transactions, and in more recent years a Federal circuit
judge in the West threw the property of the Wabash Railroad Company,
upon the application of its own directors, into the hands of receivers
selected by its former managers without the knowledge or notice of its
creditors, and issued orders for the management of the property which
greatly discriminated in favor of certain bondholders and were so
manifestly unjust that Judge Gresham, before whom the case was
subsequently brought, did not hesitate to say to them that "the boldness
of this scheme to aid the purchasing committee, by denying equal right
to all bondholders secured by the same mortgages, is equaled only by its
injustice." At the same time one of the counsel for the dissenting
bondholders characterized these strange orders as "the highwayman's
clutch on our throat, the robber's demand, 'Your money or your life.'"
The decision which the Supreme Court of the United States rendered in
the Granger cases in 1876, affirming the right of a State to control
railroad charges for the transportation of passengers and freight wholly
within the State, was a serious disappointment to railroad men, for it
was the first step toward wresting from them the power to arbitrarily
control the commerce of the country. Ever since that time it has been
their determined purpose to bring about, if possible, a reconstruction
of the Federal Supreme Court, in order to secure a reversal or
modification of the Granger decision. In the case of Peik vs. Chicago,
94th U. S., 176, the Supreme Court laid down the following broad
principle of law: "Where property has been clothed with the public
interest, the legislature may fix a limit to that which shall in law be
reasonable for its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the
people. If it has been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the
courts, must be appealed to for a change." In one of the Granger cases
the same court used the following language: "We know that this is a
power which may be abused, but that is no argument against its
existence. For protection against abuses by legislatures, the people
must resort to the polls."
Fourteen years later, in the case of C. M. & St. P. R. Co. vs. Minn.,
decided in October, 1890, the same court rendered a decision so
indefinite that the lawyers differed much in their opinions as to its
meaning, and it appears that the members of the court who made the
decision also differed in their opinions as to the meaning of the
decision; for Justice Bradley said in his dissenting opinion, in which
Justice Gray and Justice Lamar concurred, that the decision practically
overruled Munn vs. Illinois; but the same court, in a case entitled Budd
vs. New York, submitted in October, 1891, and decision rendered February
29, 1892, and opinion delivered by Justice Blatchford, in referring to
the Minnesota case, after quoting the above statement from Justice
Bradley, said: "But the opinion of the court did not say so, nor did it
refer to Munn vs. Illinois, and we are of opinion that the decision in
that case is, as will be hereafter shown, quite distinguishable from the
present case."
It is thus apparent that this court has adhered to the decision in Munn
vs. Illinois, and to the doctrines announced in the opinion of the court
in that case, and those doctrines have since been repeatedly enforced in
the decisions of the courts of the States.
Judge Brewer, whose zeal for the defense of corporate interests seems to
amount almost to a craze, dissented. He said: "I dissent from the
opinion and judgment in these cases. The main proposition upon which
they rest is, in my judgment, radically unsound. It is the doctrine of
Munn vs. Illinois reaffirmed. The paternal theory of government is to me
odious. Justice Field and Justice Brown concur with me in this dissent."
It should be remembered that Justices Brewer and Brown were both
appointed to the Supreme bench by President Harrison.
We have every reason to believe that, unless the people of the United
States are on the alert, as railroad managers always are, there is, with
further changes in the personnel of the court, danger of its deviating
from the sound principles of law laid down in its decision in the
Granger cases. Railroad attorneys have repeatedly been raised to seats
in the highest tribunal in the land. So great is the power of the
railroad interests, and so persistent are they in their demands, that,
unless a strong public sentiment records its protest, their candidates
for appointive offices are but too apt to be successful. Representatives
of the railroads sit in the Congress of the United States, others are
members of the national campaign committees of both of the great
political parties, others control the politics of the States, and their
influence reaches to the White House, whether its occupant is aware of
it or not. Other interests in the past have succeeded in securing the
appointment of biased men as judges of the Supreme Court who afterwards
could always be relied upon to render decisions in their favor. Will the
people profit by their experience, or will they be indifferent to the
danger which surrounds them, until nothing short of a political upheaval
can restore to them these rights of sovereignty, of which they have so
insidiously been deprived?
Human gratitude is such that even high-minded men who, through the
influence of the railroad interest, have been placed upon the Federal
bench, find it impossible to divest themselves of all bias when called
upon to decide a case in which their benefactors are interested. Such is
the human mind that, when clouded by prejudice, it will forever be blind
to its own fault. Even the members of so high a tribunal as the
Electoral Commission which decided the presidential contest between
Hayes and Tilden could not divest themselves of their prejudices; each
one, Republican or Democrat, voted for the candidate of the party with
which he had cast his political fortune.
Last January, in an address delivered before the New York State Bar
Association at Albany, Mr. Justice Brewer reminded his hearers that the
rights of the railroads "stand as secure in the eye and in the custody
of the law as the purposes of justice in the thought of God." And
further on they were told that "there are to-day $11,000,000,000
invested in railroad property, whose owners in this country number less
than two million persons. Can it be that whether that immense sum shall
earn a dollar or bring the slightest recompense to those who have
invested perhaps their all in that business, and are thus aiding in the
development of the country, depends wholly upon the whim and greed of
that great majority of sixty millions who do not own a dollar? It may be
said that that majority will not be so foolish, selfish and cruel as to
strip that property of its earning capacity. I say that so long as
constitutional guarantees lift on American soil their buttresses and
bulwarks against wrong, and so long as the American judiciary breathes
the free air of courage, it cannot."
Unfortunately judicial buttresses and bulwarks have not always been
lifted against wrong. Judge Taney, like Brewer, supposed that it was
left at his time for his court to preserve the peace and provide for the
safety of the nation; but history has shown that we cannot depend upon
that high tribunal for safety when it is controlled by weak or
inefficient men.
When we consider what "that great majority" has done for this country in
the past, and is doing for it at the present time, and especially when
we contrast its sense of justice and right with the weakness and
inability of some of its public servants, does it not seem to be a
little presumptuous for them to assume that "the danger is from the
multitudes--the majority, with whom is the power," and that, were it not
for their superior wisdom and patriotic action, this great government of
the people, by the people and for the people would be a failure?
Mr. Lincoln never feared "the whim and greed" of "that great majority,"
but he had at all times implicit confidence in the great mass of the
people, and they in return had full confidence that no temptation of
wealth or power was sufficient to seduce his integrity.
We cannot dismiss this subject without referring to a stratagem which
railroads have in the past repeatedly resorted to for the purpose of
removing from the bench judges of independent minds whom they found it
impossible to control. This stratagem consists of a well-disguised
bribe, by which a Federal judge is changed into a railroad attorney with
a princely salary. The railroad thus gets rid of an undesirable judge
and gains a desirable solicitor at a price at which they could well have
afforded to pension the judge.
The following is a copy of a broker's circular letter sent to prominent
bankers of Iowa, and shows that even the Clerk of the United States
Court is not overlooked:
"----, June 30th, 1892.
"Mr. ----,
"We offer, subject to sale at par and interest, note $2,500.
Date, July 5th, 1892. Time, six months; rate, 6 per cent.
Payable where desired. Maker, ---- Endorser, Judge ---- Mr.
----, the maker, is clerk of the United States Circuit Court
at ---- Judge ---- the well known attorney of the ---- and
---- Railway Co., of ----, stated to us to be worth $150,000
to $200,000. Can you use it?"
While railroad managers rely upon servile courts as a last resort to
defeat the will of the sovereign people, they are far from losing sight
of the importance of controlling the legislative branch of the
government. By preventing what they are pleased to call unfriendly
legislation they are more likely to prevent friction with public
opinion, and they avoid at the same time the risk of permanently
prejudicing their cause by an adverse opinion upon a constitutional
question which they may find it necessary to raise in order to nullify a
legislative act. There are three distinct means employed by them to
control legislative action. First, the election to legislative offices
of men who are, for some personal reason, adherents to the railroad
cause. Second, the delusion, or even corruption, of weak or unscrupulous
members of legislative bodies. Third, the employment of professional and
incidental lobbyists and the subsidizing of newspapers, or their
representatives, for the purpose of influencing members of legislative
bodies and their constituencies.
There are probably in every legislative body a number of members who are
in some way or other connected with railroad corporations. No doubt, a
majority of these are personally irreproachable and even so high-minded
as to always postpone private for public interest; yet there are also
those whose political advancement was brought about by railroad managers
for the very purpose of having in the legislative body servile members
who could always be relied upon to serve their corporate masters.
Nevertheless, were railroad interests restricted to the votes of these
men for their support, the public would probably have no cause for alarm
on account of the presence of railroad representatives in legislative
bodies, but, as many other interests seek favorable legislation,
railroad men are often enabled to gain support for their cause by a
corrupt bargain for votes, and it is thus possible for them to double,
triple, and even quadruple, their original strength, by a policy of
reciprocity.
As in Congress and State legislatures, so these representatives of the
railroads may be found in our city councils. The leaders of the
railroads in Congress and in the legislatures of the various States
usually rely upon discretion for obtaining their end, but railroad
aldermen with but few exceptions seek to demonstrate their loyalty to
the cause to which they are committed by a zealous advocacy of extreme
measures, and will not unfrequently even gain their end through the most
unscrupulous combinations. If their votes, together with such support as
they obtain by making trades, are not sufficient to carry out or defeat
a measure which the railroad interests may favor or oppose, even more
questionable means are employed to gain a sufficient number of votes to
command a majority.
Outright bribery is probably the means least often employed by
corporations to carry their measures. While it may be true that the vote
of every weak and unscrupulous legislator is a subject of barter, money
is not often the compensation for which it is obtained. It is the policy
of the political corruption committees of corporations to ascertain the
weakness and wants of every man whose services they are likely to need,
and to attack him, if his surrender should be essential to their
victory, at his weakest point. Men with political ambition are
encouraged to aspire to preferment and are assured of corporate support
to bring it about. Briefless lawyers are promised corporate business or
salaried attorneyships. Those in financial straits are accommodated with
loans. Vain men are flattered and given newspaper notoriety. Others are
given passes for their families and their friends. Shippers are given
advantages in rates over their competitors; in fact, every legislator
disposed to barter his vote away receives for it compensation which
combines the maximum of desirability with the minimum of violence to his
self-respect.
Those who attempt to influence or control legislative bodies in behalf
of interested parties are collectively called the lobby. As a rule, the
lobby consists of prominent politicians likely to have influence with
members of their own party; of men of good address and easy conscience,
familiar alike with the subject under consideration and legislative
procedure, and last, but not least, of confidential agents authorized
and prepared to enter into secret negotiations with venal members. The
lobby which represents the railroad companies at legislative sessions is
usually the largest, the most sagacious and the most unscrupulous of
all. Its work is systematic and thorough, its methods are unscrupulous
and its resources great. Yet all the members of a legislative body
cannot be bribed, either by money, or position, or favors. Some of them
will not vote for any proposed measure unless they can be convinced that
it is for the public welfare. These legislators, if their votes are
needed, are turned over to the persuasive eloquence of those members of
the lobby who, apparently, have come to the capital moved by a patriotic
impulse to set erring legislators right on public questions. Their
familiarity with public matters, their success in public life, their
high standing in political circles, their apparent disinterestedness and
their plausible arguments all combine to give them great influence over
new and inexperienced members. In extreme cases influential constituents
of doubtful members are sent for at the last moment to labor with their
representatives, and to assure them that the sentiment of their
districts is in favor of the measure advocated by the railroads.
Telegrams pour in upon the unsuspecting members. Petitions in favor of
the proposed measure are also hastily circulated among the more
unsophisticated constituents of members sensitive to public opinion, and
are then presented to them as an unmistakable indication of the popular
will, although the total number of signers forms a very small percentage
of the total number of voters of the districts in which these petitions
were circulated. A common method employed by the railroad lobby in Iowa
has been to arouse, by ingenious arguments, the prejudices of the people
of one part of the State against those of another, or of one class
against those of another class; for instance, the East against the West,
or that portion of the State the least supplied with railroad facilities
against that which is best supplied; or the river cities against the
interior cities; or the country people against the city people; or the
farmer against the merchant, and always artfully keeping in view the
opportunity to utilize one side or the other in their own interest.
Another powerful reinforcement of the railroad lobby is not unfrequently
a subsidized press and its correspondents. The party organs at the
capital are especially selected to defend as sound measures, either from
a partisan or non-partisan standpoint, legislation of questionable
propriety desired by the railroads. When such measures are advocated by
party organs, partisan members, either from fear or prejudice, are apt
to "fall into line," and then to rely upon these organs to defend their
action. Editors, reporters and correspondents are even retained as
active lobbyists and give the railroad managers' cause the benefit of
their prestige. To such an extent has the abuse of the press been
carried that a considerable number of its unworthy representatives look
upon railroad subsidies as legitimate perquisites which they will exact
through blackmailing and other means of compulsion if they are not
offered. A case may be cited here to illustrate their mode of operation,
as well as the ethics of railroad lobbies. During one of the sessions of
the Iowa legislature a newspaper correspondent came in possession of
some information which reflected severely on the railroad lobby. He made
his information the subject of a spicy article and showed it to a
friend who stood close to the gentleman chiefly implicated, with the
remark that nothing but a hundred dollar bill would prevent the
transmission of the article by the evening mail to the paper which he
represented. Before sundown the stipulated price for the correspondent's
silence was paid, and an enemy was turned into a friend.
Professor Bryce says of the American lobby system: "All legislative
bodies which control important pecuniary interests are as sure to have a
lobby as an army to have its camp followers. Where the body is, there
will the vultures be gathered together." To such an extent is the lobby
abuse carried that some large corporations select their regular
solicitors more for their qualifications as lobbyists than for their
legal lore. It is a common remark among lawyers that a great company in
Chicago pays a third-class lawyer, who has the reputation of being a
first-class lobbyist, an extravagant salary and calls him general
solicitor, while it relies upon other lawyers to attend to its important
legal business. The readiness of members of the bar to serve wealthy
corporations is fast bringing the legal profession of America into
disrepute abroad. The author just quoted, in speaking of its moral
standard, says: "But I am bound to add that some judicious American
observers hold that the last thirty years have witnessed a certain
decadence in the bar of the great cities. They say that the growth of
enormously rich and powerful corporations, willing to pay vast sums for
questionable services, has seduced the virtue of some counsel whose
eminence makes their example important, and that in a few States the
degradation of the bench has led to secret understandings between judges
and counsel for the perversion of justice."
There are, of course, able and honorable attorneys employed by railroad
companies, but often railroad lawyers are selected more for their
political influence, tact and ingenuity than for legal ability, and, as
a rule, the political lawyer receives much better compensation for his
services than does the lawyer who attends strictly to legitimate legal
work.
The danger from railroad corporations lies in their great wealth,
controlled by so few persons, and the want of publicity in their
business. Were they required to render accounts of their expenditures to
the public, legislative corruption funds would soon be numbered with the
defunct abuses of railroad corporations, and, with bribes wanting in the
balance of legislative equivalents, the representatives of the people
could be trusted to enact laws just alike to the corporations and the
public, while asserting the right of the people to control the public
highway and to make it subservient to the welfare of the many instead of
the enrichment of the few. A wise law regulating lobbies exists in
Massachusetts. Every lobbyist is required to register, as soon as he
appears at the Capitol, to state in whose interest and in what capacity
he attends the legislative session, to keep a faithful account of his
expenses and to file a copy of the same with the Secretary of State.
Were a similar law enacted and enforced by every State legislature, as
well as by Congress, the power of railroad lobbies would be curtailed.
Railroad managers never do things by halves. Well realizing that it is
in the power of a fearless executive, by his veto, to render futile the
achievements of a costly lobby and to injure or benefit their interests
by pursuing an aggressive or conservative policy in the enforcement of
the laws, they never fail to make their influence felt in the selection
of a chief magistrate, either of the Nation or of an individual State.
No delegate, with their permission, ever attends a national convention,
Republican or Democratic, if he is not known to favor the selection of a
man as the presidential candidate of his party whose conservatism in all
matters pertaining to railroad interests is well established. At these
conventions the railroad companies are always represented, and their
representatives do not hesitate to inform the delegates that this or
that candidate is not acceptable to their corporations and cannot
receive their support at the polls. During the Chicago convention of
1888 the statement was openly made that two of the Western candidates
lost Eastern support because they were not acceptable to a prominent New
York delegate who had come to Chicago in a threefold capacity--that of a
delegate, a presidential possibility, and special representative of one
of the most powerful railroad interests in the country. This same man
appeared again last year at the Minneapolis convention as chief
organizer of the forces of a leading candidate. His counterpart was in
attendance at the Chicago convention looking after the same interests
there.
It is the boast of prominent railroad men that their influence elected
President Garfield, and the statement has been made upon good authority
that "not until a few days before the election did the Garfield managers
feel secure," and that "when the secret history of that campaign comes
to be written it will be seen that Jay Gould had more influence upon the
election than Grant and Conkling." It cannot be said that railroad
managers, as a class, have often openly supported a presidential
candidate. This may be due to the fact that with the uncertainty which
has for years attended national politics they deem it the part of
discretion to pretend friendship for either party and then shout with
the victor. In conformity with this policy, a well-known New York
railroad millionaire has for years made large and secret contributions
to the campaign funds of both political parties. He thereby places both
parties under political obligations, and believes his interests safe,
whichever turn the political wheel may take. After the contest he is
usually the first to congratulate the successful candidate. In the
national campaign of 1884 this railroad king completely outwitted a
prominent Western politician and member of the Republican national
campaign committee who has always prided himself on his political
sagacity. This gentleman had taken it upon himself to enlist the rich
and powerful New Yorker in the Republican cause, and to obtain from him,
as a token of his sincerity, a large contribution to the Blaine campaign
fund. He succeeded, at least so far as the contribution was concerned;
but when the struggle was over and the opposition, in the exuberance of
joy over their victory, told tales out of school, he was not a little
chagrined to find that the managers of the Cleveland campaign had
received from the astute railroad millionaire a campaign contribution
twice as large as that which he had obtained from him. The diatribes
which for weeks after the election filled the columns of his paper
reflected in every line the injured pride of the outwitted general.
Judging from the laxity with which the railroad laws have been enforced
in a considerable number of States, their executive departments are as
much under the influence of railroad managers as are the legislative
departments of others. This cannot be surprising to those who know how
often governors of States are nominated and elected through railroad
influences, and what efforts are made by corporations to humor servile
and to propitiate independent executives. The time is not far remote
when nearly every delegate to a State convention had free transportation
for the round trip. This transportation was furnished to delegates by
railroad managers through their local attorneys, or through favored
candidates and their confidants. It was only offered to those who were
supposed to be friendly to candidates approved by the railroad managers;
and as free passage was looked upon as the legitimate perquisite of a
delegate, but few persons could be induced to attend a State convention
and pay their fare. As a consequence, the railroad managers found it too
often an easy matter to dictate the nomination of candidates.
Since the adoption of the Interstate Commerce Law convention passes, as
such, have largely disappeared; but many a prominent politician in going
to and returning from political conventions travels as a railroad
employe, though the only service which he renders to the railroad
companies consists in manipulating conventions in their favor. If all
the railroad candidates--and the companies usually take the precaution
to support more than one candidate--are defeated in the convention of
one party, and a railroad candidate is nominated by the other party, the
latter is certain to receive at the polls every vote which railroad and
allied corporate influence can command.
One might suppose that an attempt would at least be made to hide from
the general public the interference of such a power with the politics of
a State; but railroad managers seem to rely for success as much upon
intimidating political parties as upon gaining the good will of
individual citizens. To influence party action, the boast has in recent
years repeatedly and boldly been made in Iowa that 30,000 railroad
employes would vote as a unit against any party or individual daring to
legislate or otherwise take official action against their demands, and
forgetting that, with the same means used in opposition to them, a few
hundred thousand farmers and business men could be easily organized to
oppose them. Unscrupulous employers often endeavor to control the votes
of their employes. This is particularly true of railroad companies, and
they use many ingenious plans to accomplish it. In the Northwest, and
especially in Iowa, they have for several years organized their employes
as a political force for the purpose of defeating such candidates for
State offices as were known to favor State control of the transportation
business. They have even paid the expenses of the organization, although
they have made every effort to make it appear as if the movement was a
voluntary one on the part of their employes. They are employing this
method in Texas and other States at the present time, in opposition to
the effort that is being made by the people to secure just and
reasonable treatment from the railroads.
That the chief executive of a State should be influenced in the
discharge of his official duties by such favors as passes, the freedom
of the dining- and sleeping-car, by the free use of a special car, or
even a special train, one is loath to believe; yet it is a fact, and
especially during political campaigns, that such favors are frequently
offered to, and accepted by, the highest executive officers, and it is
equally true that many of these officers often connive at the continued
and defiant violations of law by railroad officials. While the men who
manage large railroad interests do not always possess that wisdom which
popular reverence attributes to them, they certainly possess great
cunning, and expend much of their artfulness in efforts to win over
scrupulous, and to render still more servile unscrupulous executives.
The general railroad diplomate never omits to pay homage to the man in
power, to flatter him, to impress him with the political influence of
his company, to intimate plainly that, as it has been in the past, so it
will be in the future its determined policy to reward its friends and to
punish its enemies. If the executive proves intractable, if he can
neither be flattered, nor coaxed, nor bribed into submission, he does
not hesitate to resort to intimidation to accomplish his purpose. This
is by no means a rare occurrence. There are few public men who, if
determined to do their duty, have not been subjected to railroad insult
and intimidation. The author may be permitted to give an instance from
his personal experience. Soon after his inauguration as Governor of Iowa
a general officer of one of the oldest and strongest Western railroads
called at his office and importuned him with unreasonable requests. When
he found that he had utterly failed to impress the author with his
arguments, he left abruptly, with the curt remark that these matters
could be settled on election day, and he emphasized his statement by
slamming the door behind him.
A servile railroad press has always been ready to misrepresent and
malign executive officers who have refused to acknowledge any higher
authority than the law, the expressed public will and their own
conception of duty. This abuse has even been carried so far that the
editorial columns of leading dailies have been prostituted by the
insertion of malicious tirades written by railroad managers and railroad
attorneys; and the fact that public opinion has not been more seriously
influenced by these venal sheets must be solely attributed to the good
judgment and safe instinct of the masses of the people.
However persistently railway organs deny it, it is a matter of general
notoriety that railway officials take an active part in political
campaigns. Hundreds of communications might be produced to show their
work in Iowa, but the following two letters, written by a prominent
railroad manager to an associate, will suffice for the purpose. It will
be noticed that one was written before and the other after election.
Comments upon their contents are unnecessary:
"----, Iowa, Nov. 2nd, 1888.
"DEAR SIR: I have just discovered this P. M. that the
Central Committee have sent electrotypes to all the
printing offices in the State of the State ticket, with
the names of the Railway Commissioners and Supreme Judge
in so small a space as to make it very difficult, if not
impossible, to write in the names. I am having slips made
with Commissioners' names and Judge written on them, and
they will be sent to all agents, not later than to-morrow,
to paste over the printed names on the ticket, and thus
beat this scheme. Have you seen any tickets yet? And what
do you think of this plan?
"Yours truly, "----"
"----, Iowa, Nov. 11, 1888.
"DEAR SIR: Repeating the old and time-honored saying:
'We have met the enemy and we are theirs.' The Democratic
Granger and the largely increased Republican vote was too
much for us. Many friends voted with the railway men, but
to no purpose. The comparison between Granger and Smyth
will tell more than anything else the strength of the
railway vote. But we are badly used up, and may as well
take our dose.
"Yours truly, "----"
While the result of this election was indeed a bad dose for speculating
railway managers, it is the opinion of the masses and of railway
stockholders, who are more interested in the general welfare of the
roads than in speculation in their stocks, that the dose was well
administered, and should be repeated whenever the necessity for it may
again arise.
It is probably true that railroad managers have lost much of their
former influence in politics. As their means of corruption have become
generally known they have become less effective. The public is more on
the alert, and corrupt politicians often find themselves unable to carry
out their discreditable compacts.
But it is unreasonable to expect the evil to cease until the cause is
removed. The trouble is inherent in the system, and the fault is there
more than in the men who manage the business, and not till the great
power exercised by them is restrained within proper limits will the evil
disappear. All this can be accomplished when there shall be established
a most thorough and efficient system of State and National control over
the railroad business of the whole country.